Jenny McCartney is a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph. On her blog, she offers hard-hitting analysis of social and political concerns and a witty deconstruction of modern celebrity culture.

What does Anders Behring Breivik want? He wants to be special. He wants to be important. He wants to be unique. He wants attention. That is why he has indicated that he wants the Norwegian judicial system either to acquit him or to reintroduce the death penalty, especially for him. In his twisted way, Breivik would interpret the latter decision as a form of homage, a confirmation that he was worthy of some form of Right-wing nationalist martyrdom that “lesser” killers evaded. He describes 21 years of prison as “a pathetic punishment”.

As the ongoing trial is demonstrating, the only notable thing about Breivik is the unusually disgusting nature of his crimes. His philosophy is a paranoid gibberish full of confused historical references and grandiose pretensions. His personality is devoid of empathy: he displays no regret at murdering 77 fellow Norwegians, or remorse at taped recordings of their terror, but weeps only at his own declarations on his YouTube video.

His guilt is not in question, since he freely admits to the killings. His sanity could be debated forever, but it seems clear that a singular amount of close planning went into his murder campaign, and it did not result from any temporary loss of control.

Nothing can bring his victims, the majority of whom were teenagers, back to life, but there may be some small consolation in denying Breivik what he so patently craves: status. Norway has held on to its reason in the face of Breivik’s attempts to inflame its rage. The Norwegian authorities were right not to broadcast his court statements, because they were wary of providing him with a platform for his views: that policy should continue in all other forms. Whatever the Norwegian court decides to do with him at the conclusion of his trial, I hope it involves the rapid descent of obscurity, and the sharp withdrawal of the oxygen of publicity.

In Oslo, stonemasons are carving memorials to those who died in Breivik’s attacks. Remember Trond Berntsen, the unarmed off-duty police officer on Utoya who became one of the first victims after he confronted the gunman, but managed to save his own 10-year-old son? Or Johannes Buoe, murdered at the age of 14?

Let the end of this trial mark the silencing of their killer’s voice: it would be a victory if, in 20 years’ time, people still remembered the names of Trond Berntsen, Johannes Buoe, and all who died along with them, and had forgotten that of the repellent man whose only dismal legacy was that he took away their precious lives.